How To Make Yourself Useful Even When You're Just a Writer

Note: as a result of the comments I received on this post, I’ve switched to non-lethal trapsMy wife and I were curled up on the sofa, about to watch a movie, when my kids started screaming. “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! It’s the end of the world!”Instantly, my wife, the dog and I accelerated up the stairs, barely touching the floor as we ascended. The dog was especially funny. He didn’t know what was going on, but he was ready! His hackles were up, and he looked this way and that trying to find the source of the energy in the air so he could pounce on it and be the hero.He’s always the hero.I found my girls dangling precariously on the furniture clutching anything they could find to lend them a bit of stability. Even in my flush of panic, I was impressed by their agility. Human beings are capable of amazing feats of strength when they start freaking out.“What is it?”“A mouse! A mouse! A mouse!” my girls cried.Oh, good, at least it wasn’t some ax wielding murderer. When my kids start screaming, the first thing in my mind is that I’m going to have to wrestle somebody to death and I’m not entirely sure I’m up for it. In that context, a mouse is no big deal. I’m a lot bigger than a typical mouse.I paused in my reflections and realized nobody else seemed to be relaxing. My kids looked at me expectantly. So did my wife. So did the dog. The message was clear, “This job’s on you bud!”“Well, where did he go?”“He went to the bathroom,” the girls pointed.“Okay, I’ll handle it,” I said. As I went downstairs to get a mouse trap, I realized that this task fell squarely under the umbrella of my responsibilities. Handling mice is one of the ways I’m “useful” to my family. In one sense, I was happy for the opportunity to prove my worth, though I also felt pressure to perform.This got me reflecting on what it means to be a writer, and all the obligations you have to take on in order to support your writing habit.My wife is the responsible oneI’m fortunate in that I have a wife with a steady job. She’s a teacher, and we get our health insurance through her work. Not a day goes by that I’m not grateful for her. Without my wife, I would not be able to continue to work as a writer.This has been a long journey. I met my wife in Peru, and we moved back to the US in 2009. My wife is not the type of person who is content to sit around and watch television all day. She had been a respected professional in Peru, and she immediately started volunteering at the local school district. That led to a job as a family services facilitator, and later she earned her teaching license.I really didn’t have a plan for our life when we moved here. I’d been without insurance until my mid-thirties, so I didn’t fully grasp the complexities of the domestic life. My wife’s first job got us insurance, but it only paid about a third of what she was worth. Making the jump to getting a license involved overcoming a stunning amount of obstacles.That was one of the places where my writer skills came in handy. I don’t mind sending off applications to schools and chasing down the necessary documentation. We had to get my wife’s degree accredited, find a place to take an English competency exam, prepare her for the exam, the list goes on and on.During the process of supporting my wife as she got her license, I made myself very useful.The value of an English degreeThere’s an inclination to snort at the value of an English degree. “Why do I need to study that? I already know how to speak English?” But I found that the mountain of paperwork confronting my wife was almost enough to deter her.Preparing and submitting documents is not in itself insurmountable. But when you add in the difficulties of making a living and raising a family, pursuing further education can become a daunting task. Sometimes you don’t want to squint at poorly written instructions, or argue over an absurd rejection for a document that clearly met the stated requirements. Sometimes you just want to pour yourself a glass of wine and watch a movie.In order to get my wife’s foreign degree accredited, we needed her diploma. Transcripts weren’t enough. The trouble was, my wife had lost her original college diploma.So, I had to write a bunch of letters and make a bunch of phone calls and eventually we got a replacement diploma that was signed by Peru’s minister of education. Then it was just a matter of getting whoever was in charge of evaluating her file to accept that document, which they eventually did.Navigating this kind of obstacle takes time and tenacity. Fortunately, I had the flexibility to set aside my other work in order to get it done.When it comes to career advancement, it’s very useful to have somebody in your household who knows what an academic paper should look like. Sometimes my wife would get a little frustrated with me as I nitpicked details, but she eventually realized it was better to get that feedback from me than have to worry about resubmitting a paper to her professor.I’m not a lawyer or a doctor, but being a writer is useful too. A lot of people end up stuck on a lower pay scale because they can’t overcome the obstacles of accreditation. I’m glad that I’ll be able to help my children when it comes time for them to navigate these challenges.Your job as a writer is to make yourself usefulI’ve only recently came to realize that all of the extra things I do are just as much a component of my writing career as the time I spend putting words on the page. When I was supporting my wife as she pursued her license, I “put the novel on hold.”That can be a slippery slope because many writers end up keeping the novel on hold forever. Yes, you have to carve out time for your writing, but a writer who never makes any contribution to a household becomes a problem. When the sales aren’t happening, you’ve got to take on some jobs to help smooth out the lean times.No matter what you’re trying to sell, there will always be lean times.Hitting the pause button on my professional objectives to help my wife land a higher salary is an easy decision to make. When my wife sends me a document to proofread, all other work stops. Assisting the stable wage earner is my top priority.Household repairsThe key to profitability in any kind of business is to cut your expenses. For a writer, that means you have to cut all the expenses of life.You give yourself the best chance of success as a writer if you learn to be frugal. It’s easy for me because I’d prefer to sit in an empty room and daydream anyway. However, my wife and children deserve a nicer place to live than what I’m willing to put up with.We purchased an inexpensive, run-down house in 2009. Since then, I’ve basically learned everything you need to know to build a house (YouTube is awesome). A writer can’t afford to hire professionals to come in and fix things, so you have to learn to fix everything yourself.Being a jack-of-all trades is essential in order to succeed as a writer.In reality, learning how to do things yourself is the essence of writing. Writers figure stuff out and then write about it. No matter how prolific you are, you can only write so many words in a day. I find that tasks like installing a shut-off valve or tiling the bathroom are a nice compliment to writing.I’ve gotten really good at installing tile.Doing household repairs requires a different part of your brain. When the writing component of your brain is exhausted, you can make yourself useful by getting to work on your run-down, inexpensive house.Even though I don’t make as much as a professional in another field, I’m useful. I bring in some money with my contributions, and I also eliminate expenses in order to close the gap.The hunterI have to kill spiders. I’m very good at killing bees. I can even chase down a house centipede. Mice are also my responsibility.I came back upstairs, mouse trap in hand, to find my girls sitting in bed together. They were reading each other stories. It was the cutest thing ever. My wife was giggling about the whole ordeal at this point, even the dog had settled down.Catching a mouse is a form of hunting. You can’t solve this problem by going after it directly. Instead, you have to set the trap in a likely place where your kids aren’t going to step on it and elicit another round of screaming. I figured out the place in the bathroom where I thought the mouse had likely gone, then I set the trap out of the way beneath the sink.My wife and I were about twenty minutes into the movie, when the kids came downstairs again. “We heard the trap snap!” they said. “We think it’s Larry.”“Who is Larry?”“Larry is the mouse, we named him.”“Did you look in the bathroom to see if he’s in the trap?”“Of course not!”So my wife the girls and the dog stayed downstairs. I got a garbage bag and my mouse removal gloves and my pliers with a long handle to grab the trap (because I didn’t want the body of a dead mouse flopping onto my hands).I gathered up Larry’s body in the bag and then passed through the living room to an exclamation of “Eww!” Then I said a few words and laid Larry to rest.When I came back into the house, I felt useful. I’d done my job, the family was safe. Even the dog looked at me with an expression that said, “You’re kind of a slacker, but I guess you’re all right.”I’m a writer. My job is to write and to make myself useful however I can.You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! I have payment tiers starting at as little as twenty dollars a year.Upgrade at 30% offUpgrade at 40% offUpgrade at 50% offUpgrade at 60% offI'm so happy you're here, and I'm looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.My CoSchedule referral linkHere’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. 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